September 19th.

I will make the land desolate because they have been unfaithful, declares the Sovereign LORD.

There must be a purging to bring a renewal, to let the land rest from the evil that seeped into it as the nature of the humans was allowed to run rampant in those who were intended to be devoted to the LORD, the God of Israel instead of their selves. But that nature is powerful and what it makes well up inside us is are strong forces to have to deny (the desire to worship the gods of the nations around Israel). Every thing, tendency and thought that the humans promote as valuable, therefore what should be sought after because it holds value, is the same as the gods of the nations around the copy of the true Israel.

As I have given the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest as fuel for the fire, so will I treat the people living in Jerusalem. I will set my face against them. Although they have come out of the fire, the fire will yet consume them. And when I set my face against them, you will know that I am the LORD.

Those who were chosen to be the copy of the assembly of the firstborn sons of God (the clans of the natural children of Abraham) were given instructions and laws about how to be and stay right with the God who intended, created then saved them from their servitude so He could deliver them to a place they could have as their own country. There they could develop and grow, be safe from threat so they could continue to thrive, and live with their God in peace while they devoted themselves to learning and following the instructions and laws He had given them, so they might be right with Him (righteous). However, the pull of the nature that was inside them to choose against God was always just too strong, so there was this back and forth between God and the people He created to be a symbol/copy of the better thing—the family of sons, modeled after the firstborn Son of God, who deny that animal nature in favor of the God who is calling them to be a part of this better thing, which consists of the desire and therefore the intention of God to have this family He wants with Him where He is (where the Son is with Him now).

You say about this place, "It is a desolate waste, without men or animals." Yet in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted, inhabited by neither men nor animals, there will be heard once more the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those who bring thank offerings to the house of the LORD, saying,

"Give thanks to the LORD Almighty, for the LORD is good; his love endures forever."
For I will restore the fortunes of the land as they were before,' says the LORD.

The better thing is what the prophets said about Israel and Zion, not a nation filled with human animals but the congregation of the sons who do choose Him over the nature that wants to rule them, when they are given the choice to choose. We can see from the history of man that he neither now, nor in the past wants to serve God with an undivided heart and be devoted to Him as the firstborn Son of God was, no matter what they say with their mouths. That's because they are completely given over to the animal that wants to and does rule them with an iron fist, and just because that's the way the Father wants it to be. While the humans are given over to their self-serving, God-hating nature that cannot be devoted to Him, the sons must be pulled out of that nature in order to become transformed into a being who can be as pleases their Father (righteous, not fully dead to Him).

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.

The sons will know first hand what they are being saved from because it inhabits them, so they are intimately familiar with its power to keep them where they don't want to be. When they understand that even their ability to become pleasing to God has to come from Him, they are just beginning to be able to comprehend and desire a nature of humility. That's the state of existence where all the things that used to mean so much to them (because the humans told them as much, and the nature living in them trained them to be devoted as such) can just fall away, because they have tasted something that satisfies them in a secret place, where a permanent sort of satisfaction can be effected in them, not like anything they have known before.

Mary sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

I woke up with an obscure desire to not be so self-concerned, driven by the realization that I'm still very much caught up with my own plight, struggle and dilemma—the need to constantly feel that I'm okay, right, secure and safe in my existence. I am driven by a force that wants me keep wanting to do whatever I can for my self, while having little actual concern for anyone else is the logical outcome of that drive. I have some conceptual understanding about how things were/might/should/could be, but it seems theoretical and not actual. Perhaps it is this way because I'm still in the beginning stages of the transformation, and the understanding of how things are, developing as this body of conceptual knowledge within me, is necessary as a foundation for what is coming. At least that's the presumption, the logic attached to an explanation of this continual, supernatural string of events that has been happening for a handful of years already, what seems to be continuing to evolve within me.

I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

Nevertheless, the reality of what I'm actually driven by is different than the theory of sonship that I've been expounding, what I gather those first century brothers were driven by, instead of the self-promoting nature that drives me. The tendency is to assume and presume, but the reality is that it isn't here in the substantial form I want it to be. That's how the logic turn in on itself and becomes more of the irony that the real God enjoys to such a great extent, which is obvious in getting to know Him and how He actually operates. Even that can be seen within the pages of the preserved words, which always escapes the humans because they have already decided what they want their gods to be, according to what they are willing to accept as fits the mold of what appeases their illogical fears within them that drive them to be what they are—scared animals looking to have their fears appeased and their cravings fulfilled (the two things work hand in hand).

The earth was made desolate of what those first century sons had, and it isn't as the ones who claim to know the way to God claim it is—that it never left as promised by Daniel, Jesus, Peter and Paul, but is still just hanging around waiting to be grabbed onto by any and every one of the animals who has half a whim to get the ultimate something for themselves. Goin' to heaven with all the good people like us because we're approved by pastor bullshit mouth, who has no authority to promise what he's promising to deliver to those who validate his emotional need to feel right, and give him some sweet cash to pay his mortgage. It may be that as slowly as it fizzled out and left, that's the way it has to come back, and it may be that all we have is the very beginnings of a hope and a looking forward to something that may have been evolving for hundreds of years, and will just continue. We must be a very tiny piece of something very big, what has been happening since the beginning in secret, hidden from the humans at large.

Although we have wanted to know, and presumed that we should be able to know—based mostly on the fact that we understood that this thing happening inside us is genuine, and not of this world—we can't know, and shouldn't want to know. That need and craving is the basis of the evil that exists in us because we come from human stock, what we so vociferously denounce among the humans and their assumption/presumption that they do know, and can show others the way to the Father. However, that presumption which drives that need to find the validation they crave isn't wanting to give something to others, as they claim, but to fulfill their own need to find that validation that they seek, which is an inherent part of the nature that rules them. It is such an integral part of the sin nature to be driven to find and get that type of validation about what they are wanting to "believe" in, that the humans can't and won't see that *that* is the sinful nature they condemn in those who are not like them as they think and teach that they can turn away from it by adhering to a set of creeds developed by humans.

The same tendency to see it in the others is what we're guilty of too, because that's the way we protect our selves from having to come out from our hiding place and be honest with the Father, which is why we're still separated from Him. We are animals with that nature intact, fully cemented into us when we were called, so that we have to make the transformation back and away from what we are at our core. The fact that what's in us is only just a tiny, one-dimensional seed that perhaps has only just begun to sprout is not a thing to lose heart about, because the hope is the thing we've been called to, even to know about it and detail what we know for our own selves. We certainly don't know enough to be able to teach others now, because that kind of desire comes from the animal, to be held up as something or someone special, who can teach. It comes from our evil craving to be validated within and for our selves, to get some of that emotional currency that our animal seeks to get however it can, especially if we're trying to deny it the other cravings that well up inside us.

That emotional craving to be validated also works to try to appease our fear of not knowing because we can't control anything that's happening like we used to be able to control things. Whatever has gripped us is real and alive and it (the intention of the Father to reveal Himself to us) is in control of what's happening. Therefore our efforts to hold on to it, to make it into something for our benefit, to control it for our purposes—what we are driven to do on levels that we cannot even control—are in vain because we are fundamentally evil (what's driving this phenomenon within us) and unable to do or be anything good, what we ironically keep on assuming we inherently are because of the nature that rules us and all of the humans.

I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs.

So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

This was originally said by the Son who knew what he was saying because the gift of the life of the Father lived inside him; and was spoken to those who didn't yet know, because they hadn't yet received the gifts themselves. Later they did, and found out what Jesus was talking about before. He knew the ones he was supposed to teach, even when they didn't (merely being driven by the call of the Father to listen to and hear what the Son was saying to them). The teacher inside him, the counseling and comforting life of the Father (the spirit) told the Son who his true brothers were—not the sons of Joseph but of God their true Father. They couldn't know it because He couldn't live in them to tell them. Later He could, when the Son went to the Father to become One with Him, then He could because the Son was a kind of buffer between Him and those who were still animals. While he was in his human body teaching them, they didn't have the capacity to understand, nor become as he was because they hadn't yet received that same life in them which drove and led Jesus instead of the animal, the serpent. He is urging them to not lose heart, but continue to believe and move along the path that leads to the Father, even though there will be internal and external adversity.

Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil (natural), know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your spiritual Father give the spirit to those who ask him!

The reason we're given the account of Peter denying Jesus is to show us that even this one who was chosen to see so much and was given so much chance to see couldn't help but be led by the self-protecting animal nature, even after 3 years living with and learning from him who wasn't driven/led by the animal (serpent). Self-protect is what Peter did when confronted with the dilemma of identifying with Jesus, or abandoning him out of shame. We see that Peter was helpless to love Jesus—what he claimed he would do theoretically (if things went the way he could accept)—by admitting that he was Peter's master to the end, and he was Jesus' disciple. But he couldn't love Jesus because the animal nature ruled him to prohibit him from doing it not just theoretically and conditionally. All because he hadn't yet received the gift he later did receive, which Jesus kept urging the men to continue asking for—because God doesn't like presumption and arrogance, but humility and truth.

The truth is that we are nothing, and that our nature which keeps spinning us around back in on itself—to serve, love, promote and preserve its self—is evil, and continues to keep us not humble and aware of the truth that we're nothing, but slaves to the lie that lives in us that we are something special. In reality, we are arrogant little animals who can only love themselves, who are driven to behold themselves as inherently good, when ironically we are driven by the nature that hates God and doesn't want to accept things as He wants them, but on as we want them (because we know best). As animals, we don't have the ability to love anyone or anything but our selves, and so we cannot love God. Our nature makes us unclean, unlike the sons that the Father wants to have, unlike how Jesus was when he lived, wanting to please the Father instead of himself, the opposite of what we as humans naturally do and are able to do.

The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life.

Being given the spirit is being set free from the animal nature which can only serve itself, but we either have not yet been given it or else it's growing so slowly in us that it's undetectable; there exists only the awareness of what may be possible because of what we can read as the witness and testimony of what the brothers in the first century had. There is something in us, though, even which has enlightened us to some theoretical understanding, to be sure. There is nothing higher that we can hope to attain to in this life, because when we are given the spirit we will be set free from the other thing, that which we still are bound to. So we should continue to hope, ask and pray for what we don't yet have, with a diligent heart that wants to face the truth of what we are, not hide from it, which is the animal's MO.

Son of man, how is the wood of a vine better than that of a branch on any of the trees in the forest? Is wood ever taken from it to make anything useful? Do they make pegs from it to hang things on? And after it is thrown on the fire as fuel and the fire burns both ends and chars the middle, is it then useful for anything? If it was not useful for anything when it was whole, how much less can it be made into something useful when the fire has burned it and it is charred?

What man wants a useless servant? The point of  having a servant is that he is useful for the man—he serves him. What part of us could be useful to God, when we're still so filled up with the nature of the self-preserving animal? He doesn't need work to be done by us for Him because the angels are capable of carrying out any work that needs to be done without fail. If we live in him and he lives in us then we can be changed from something useless to something useful, from a plot of land overgrown with weeds to a lush garden full of trees that produce all kinds of fruit for the farmer to harvest and eat. God's treasure is a man's heart that turns away from His enemy, towards Him. When nothing matters in a man's life except knowing and pleasing God, a love for his Father more than a love of himself, then he can be useful to God. But that can only happen if the animal nature is rooted out of him, otherwise he is woefully at the mercy of it, and there is no escaping, undermining, or fighting it.

He doesn't need anything except genuine love of His sons toward Him. That is what the spirit can bring us to be able to give to the Father, because by its regenerative power he can turn us from animals which can only serve themselves, into sons of God who love Him more than their very lives. That is the only way to be able to please the Father. Without it we are doomed not only to serve the animal nature, but also to not even know we are in prison to it, because its ability to keep us in the lie that it promotes is more powerful than our ability to even recognize it. Our entire lives we will live and die to ourselves, unable to be free from the prison of the flesh, the natural, the evil, unclean animal—unawares that we are even in a prison.

Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.

The only way that we can know we belong to God is if He puts His seal of ownership on us, if He marks us with His name on our forehead, if He pierces our ear on the doorpost with His awl. None of this is visible in the natural because God isn't natural—natural is evil—it all happens in the spiritual world where God lives, so it is hidden from the humans who are purely natural. The way that He will do this is via the spirit, an invisible part of Himself that is planted in us, which is the living word that can speak unintelligible words. With the spirit comes life (Peter after the spirit was given), when there was only death before (Peter denying Jesus by the instinct to survive).

Being born of God designates in the spiritual world that we are His, not in the natural world of the humans ruled by the serpent, the king of all the animals. Because the humans are ruled by the animal, they will not see what the sons are able to see. When God's sons are spiritually marked, they become sealed to withstand the fire that burns up everything else because like the blood on the doorposts it passes over them. It is a guarantee about their future because they know that they are born of God and cannot die if they abide in him, and He by His spirit abides in their heart. To the natural the spirit is incomprehensible, but to the one to whom it is being given, spiritual (heavenly) things start to make sense; as spiritual mysteries are revealed, where before there was nothing but confusion and presumption.